Quest: a definition
In the tradition of Western culture, the quest motif is linked to the legend of the Grail as it emerged in the last decades of the twelfth century when Chrétien de Troyes composed what remains to date the first-known Grail romance: "Perceval and the Story of the Grail." (Documents to be shown: the two Grail illustrations found in the manuscript tradition of Chrétien's romance; musical background from Wagner's "Parsival").
Stories on the Holy Grail
Chrétien never completed his Grail romance, thus inspiring a plethora of sequels, or "continuations," that each attempted to bring Perceval's quest to its conclusion. An intriguing aspect of Grail literature after Chrétien is that, in the hands of his continuators, the Grail became a sacred and sanctified object, and its quest, a journey towards an ideal. (Documents to be shown: illustrations of the Grail as paten and chalice from the medieval manuscript tradition; review of the major Grail narratives from Robert de Boron to Malory's "Morte Darthur"; cultural and historical influence of the Holy Grail legend from Edward the First's replica of the Round Table to illustrations of the "Morte Darthur" by Aubrey Beardsley and Charles Gere).
Students will then be asked to contrast and compare the documents thus presented to the reinscription of the legends of King Arthur and the Holy Grail in Boorman's "Excalibur."
New Quest Stories
The concept of quest focuses on a journey that may take a variety of forms and may aim at a variety of destinations. This part of the course will present an integrated documentation on several variations on the ideal significance of the quest: for love (from "Lanval", a medieval chivalric novella composed by Marie de France in the late twelfth century, to Hitchcok's "Vertigo," down to Lucas's "Star Wars"); for self-identity (by Lanval in Marie de France's novella, by Holden in Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye," down to Indiana in Spielberg's "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"); or for a father-figure (from Perceval in Chrétien's romance, to Luke in "Star Wars," to Holden, down to Indiana).
Additional documents to be shown include: depictions of chivalry as ideal knighthood in the romance tradition, and as a social ideal; modern re-enactments of medieval chivalry; the knight-in-shining-armor motif as exploited in current publicity.
New Grail stories
This part of the course will induce students to explore the potentially not-so-ideal significance of the quest motif by considering its often violent and lethal manifestations: as the vehicle of rivalry and competition (from Chrétien's romance to "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"); as a destination that fosters chaos and degeneration (from "Monty Python" to "Apocalypse Now").
Additional documents to be integrated in this demystifying approach to the legend of the Grail include: Frazer's "The Golden Bough," Jessie Weston's "From Ritual to Romance," and Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" as textual sources for Coppola's "Apocalypse Now"; the Far-West myth and frontier mentality from traditional Western movies to "Indiana's" humorous perspective on "cow boy" chivalry; "Carmina Burana" as textual and musical background for Boorman's "Excalibur"; Wagner's operas ("Siegfried," "Tristan und Isolde," and "Parsifal") as soundscape from "Excalibur" to "Apocalypse Now"; and the Grail legend as integral to the Aryan dream of conquest in Nazi Germany.
GOAL: This integrated approach to the quest motif in the tradition of Western culture has for its principal purpose to induce students to reflect on the interconnection of, and at times, dangerous confusion between, such notions as ideal and ideology; quest and conquest; pursuit and persecution; and prowess and pride. The aim is to produce an all-encompassing review of the works and perspectives inspired (directly or indirectly) by the Grail legend, from the pre-modern as well as from the modern period, in the European as well as in the American tradition, from a cultural as well as a historical perspective, and through textual as well as visual and musical documents.
This groundwork will lead to the exploration of other examples and manifestations illustrating the quest for love, for self-identity, for a father-figure, for conquest, and for power and glory as those motifs are part and parcel of the legend of the Grail in Chrétien's de Troyes's first-known Grail romance. A final topic of discussion will focus on the notion of "romance" and of its lasting impact on modern literary, cultural, and cinematographic productions (including para-literary genres such as folk-songs, popular "romance" series, and contemporary Arthurian-related, pseudo-historical novels).